David’s ghost-hunting YouTube show brings him to the doorstep of Carol, a woman living alone in her grandparent’s enormous estate. His interest in the supernatural attracts him to the possibly-haunted dwelling, and Carol’s behavior certainly lends itself to the awkward and abnormal. But David must ask himself: has Carol gone mad with grief of her family member’s deaths, or is something more sinister at work? The Follower answers that burning question of whether what we see online could be real or otherwise explainable.
Unlike most people, I actually like found footage and POV films. When they’re done badly, it shows, but when they’re done right they can be amazing. Unfortunately The Follower left a lot to be desired with lacking storylines, long intervals of stale acting, and a general absence of fear-inducing situations.
The Follower showed a lot of promise, using tropes and trends we’re all familiar with. Found footage is not new, and at this point we’re comfortable with the routine “film everything” approach — although there’s still the “why are they filming?” mentality. But I appreciated how the filmmakers tried to solve that problem by having Carol give explicit instructions to film everything at all times and even reminding him to keep filming throughout the movie. David’s career as a YouTuber also provides a plausible excuse to carry on.
The main character, David, is a YouTuber, linking this movie with the now real-life career of a social media influencer. Even the title is relevant in this sense — everyone is a follower: the audience watching this film (and horror fans in general), Carol as one of David’s subscribers, David as a spirit-seeking YouTuber, and the Evil that literally follows David wherever he goes.
But as smart and modern as the movie is, there were definitely flaws. I was often left with more questions than answers and sadly many of those questions didn’t matter to the plot at all, leading me to think I wasn’t all that interested in the movie as I originally thought. Why did Carol and her estranged brother have wildly different accents? How did Carol not mention the news reports of her grandmother’s murder years prior? How long was David planning on staying with Carol? Did they work that out beforehand? When you ask yourself irrelevant questions, you end up taking yourself outside of the experience.
What I was disappointed most in was what I call “The ‘Rings’ Effect;” a movie starts off with an intriguing plot, only to shift to a much less interesting one. I expected a few nights of jump scares and got surprisingly very few (I can count about 8 possible jumpscare points in the entire film). The slower-burning scares were almost nonexistent — any tension gained was almost immediately taken away by gawky actors unconvincingly or overdramatically reciting lines. There was only one time where I truly felt any inkling of fright: David’s first drive up to Carol’s house. From there on, it was touch and go, build-up and disappointment.
If I could rate The Follower on a scale from “No” to “Amazing,” I’d put it right in between “Meh” and “Maybe.” The trailer promises a movie filled to the brim with ghosts and apparitions, but we get very few instances of these. Instead we get a not-too-convincing portrayal of family drama coming back to “haunt” a once-happy home. I wish The Follower had taken a different route with the story it started out with, but all I got in the end were questions. Perhaps this is a case of bad trailer editing. Or perhaps this movie just didn’t hit its mark. Should that keep you from seeing it? No, but don’t expect too much — you could afford to drift off into your phone screen for a little while.
Article previously written for Morbidly Beautiful. This article has since been updated.
